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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1467608" data-attributes="member: 9626">Treacherous JourneyThe next day, the part met up with Jack and Eric again, and the two of them unveiled their plan.  As a criminal of unknown origin, their prisoner (who has been calling himself Paul,) is not allowed to use the underground tunnels connecting Delaspie to Methosilang.  Thus, they have to go overland, but the area between Necropolis and Delaspie is right on the border between the orc and undead empires and both forces patrol heavily.  To get through the area with maximum speed and efficiency, the two of them have built a small boat on a river that flows very close to Necropolis and the wall of Delaspie (the giant fortified wall that circles the entire kingdom; think the Great Wall of China but curved.)  The party can use the river to get past the worst of the border quickly and reasonably quietly.  It’s dangerous, of course, but the party is eager to try despite this fact, and they take the job.  The party receives a few hundred gold for starting supplies, and are told that they’ll receive the rest when they reach Delaspie’s capital (Jack and Eric will take the underground passage and meet them there.)  A few hours later, the party, plus Jack and Eric, leave the city and travel to the river, where the boat is being finished by a few laborers from Necropolis.  Jack and Eric handed over both Paul and some of Paul’s possessions, including some of the items that he stole, which mostly consist of ceramic art.  These are placed and locked in a treasure chest, which is then bound to the raft the part will take to get down the river.  Paul is also bound to the raft, though he has given the party no trouble yet.  Once the final preparations are made, Jack and Eric wish the party luck, and warn them that while this is the safest route, the undead in particular are known to guard this river, so parts of the journey may be hazardous.  With that warning, the party sets off on their next adventure!Tanos watched the group leave while under the guise of invisibility.  Those meddlesome adventurers!  First, they ruined the experiment he began on the orcs, and they didn’t learn exactly what happens when the process was completed.  And now he has to deal with the witnesses both here and with the survivors of the orc tribe they experimented on!  Others have been called to take care of the orcs, but it is his duty to ensure that this party never tells anyone about what they witnessed.  If he fails, he knows his life is forfeit, so he will never rest until they are dead.  And besides, killing such unsuspecting fools could be entertaining….The party rafted in silence for a few moments.  Finally, Tal spoke up.  “My friends, I have made a decision.  Seeing our paladin friend yesterday has made me realize that I am incomplete myself.  My family came from a lineage of dragons, and I believe that it is my destiny to become one myself.  I will try to begin this transformation once I have developed my knowledge and become more attuned to the magical nature of my heart.”Rudyard chuckled.  “Well, at least you picked the right half to try to emulate.”Finally, Quercus had enough.  “What is wrong with you two?  I understand your desire to fight the orc empire, but this is ridiculous.  What reason could you possibly have for insulting our friend, who the Sisters themselves regard as being worthy enough to hold the title of paladin?  And your behavior back at the shine was inexcusable!  We gave our word to work for a peaceful solution.  I won the game anyway; we didn’t need to fight, and we risked losing the mission, the shrine, and even our lives needlessly!”This time, it was Tsine’s turn to respond.  “No, what is wrong with you?  We are at war with these monsters!  We are supposed to be warriors of the city, not diplomats!  If we insist on talking to our enemies every chance we get, we’ll never prove to ourselves that we are real heroes of Methosilang.”At this, Quercus said quietly, “Are you sure you’re trying to prove this to yourself, and not your fathers?”After listen to all of this, Paul secretly smiled.  These fools will be easier to manipulate than he thought.There was a long, uncomfortable silence after that, broken suddenly by chanting.  Tal and Tsine recognized it instantly; though they couldn’t see who it was, someone was casting a spell!  The party prepared for anything, which proved wise, when a pair of strange, mosquito-like birds appeared out of nowhere.  Quercus could sense immediately, however, that these weren’t ordinary birds; they hailed from outside of this plane initially, and were somehow summoned here.  To make matters worse, as soon as the party saw these birds, they noticed a tower guarded by skeletons on the east bank.  They’ll soon be attacked from there as well.  The party springs into action.  Before the birds can react, Quercus unsheathes his sword and slices one in half, while Tsine uses magic to repeatedly bombard the second.  It also collapses.  However, as soon as they finished, they were nearly hit by a swarm of arrows from the tower.  At the same time, they heard the chanting again.  Raz and Rudyard took control of this one, firing a pair of arrows into the tower.  They hit two of the skeletons, but the tiny arrows had little effect.  Tal used his magic to finish those two off, while the chanting stopped, and a giant mantis, with the same aura of evil, appeared in the center of the raft.  Quercus and Flix focused their attacks on it, but it survived both of their strikes, and turned to bite and slash at Flix.  Fortunately, he seemed unconcerned about the evil energy of the claw, but it nonetheless left a brutal slash across Flix’s chest.  Tsine noticed things were going badly behind him, so he fired an arrow of acid at the creature, which finished the beast off.  Tal, Rudyard, and Raz finished off the remaining skeletons on the tower, and the party sighed in relief, thinking that the worst is behind them.  Their opinion changed quickly when the geyser of water shot up in the middle of the boat! The party tried to get out of the way, but Tsine was caught in the full blast of it, and was shot into the air, and then overboard!Fortunately, the geyser disappeared as quickly as it appeared, so it wasn’t a leak.  But that meant someone created it nearby, and there was no chanting this time.  Despite the danger Tsine’s in, the rest of the group didn’t have time to worry about him right now, for they were approaching a second tower.  This one was staffed by skeletons as well, but they were arming a ballista!  Even worse, a strange monster was on the tower, and as the boat neared, it suddenly rose to attention.  It had a lion-like body, but a vaguely human head, wings, and a spiked tail.  It was also clearly dead, and was in the process of rotting away.  It started its attack by launching some of its tail spikes, but the muscles in its tail had decomposed too much, and they fell short.  It then took often, and began to fly towards the boat.  Meanwhile, even Quercus and Flix drew missile weapons, in a desperate attempt to destroy the creature before it could get on the boat.  They got a few good shots, but as they were firing, the ballista struck the boat.  It avoided all the heroes, but it gave the boat a nasty crack.  A few more shots like that and it could sink!Meanwhile underwater, Tsine saw his attacker.  It looked a little like a ghoul or some other undead monster, but around its rotted hide, it had a strange armor formed out of coral, shells, and what looks like solidified water itself.  The creature lunged for him, slashing once with its claw.  Tsine winced from the pain, and even worse, felt like his very breath was being stolen by the creature.  He held it in with an effort of will, and realized he had to get out of the water quickly, but he was too laded down with items to swim easily.  Desperately, he drew his sword, and plunged it into the front of the boat.  With a feat of strength, he pulled himself upwards, until he was halfway out of the water.  Suddenly, he felt something bite and tear into his legs, and his mouth involuntarily open and released everything in his lungs.  Using his last bit of strength, he finished pulling himself onto the boat, and then collapsed on the floor, panting and heaving.Meanwhile, the party continued their attack on the flying monstrosity.  Well, except for Tal, who instead focused his magic bolts on the skeletons controlling the ballista, in the hope that he can destroy enough to delay the reloading process.  A few fell to his blasts, while the others finished destroying the undead manticore just seconds before it reached the raft.  They were all startled as another geyser jerked the raft, but remembering what happened to Tsine, everyone was able to grab onto something before it was too late.  With their most dangerous enemy dead, all six of them concentrated on the skeleton ballista operators, and a second set of archers that started to fire at them from another tower.  This lasted until the creature that attacked Tsine finally leapt onto the raft itself, and launched another.  The party got a good look at this time, and saw that the geyser literally ran out of the creature’s arm, draining the armor around it in the process, and then turned into a geyser when it flowed into the right position.  But the party was again prepared for this, and Quercus immediately switched to his sword, and he and Tsine finished the creature.  The two sets of skeletons fell quickly as well, as were another pair of the sunken monsters and one last tower of skeletons that attacked shortly after that point.  Finally, it looked like the party managed to pass the undead’s checkpoint, and concentrated on healing and resting as the raft coasted into a lake at the end of the river.  This period of relaxation lasted all of ten seconds, as a giant, reptilian head surfaced about twenty feet from the raft, saw the party, roared in hunger, and then dived for them!OOC Notes:  The monster that attacked the party from underwater was the first monster I made up for the game.  It is called a Sunken, and was actually based on a video game monster for an idea I designed, and one day hope to produce.  If anyone wants the stats, I can email them or print them here, but I haven’t used them since the 3.0 days, so you have to wait for me to update it or update it yourself.  I also would ask you to give credit to me if you do use it, since I’d rather not have someone claim it as an idea I ripped off from him or her if the game idea ever gets off the ground.  Paranoid, I know, but better safe than sorry.The party got through this area more easily than I expected.  All the enemies were in the CR range from ½ to 4, and half the party was 5th level by this point.  The quantity almost made up for the lack of quality, but too many enemies started with a distance disadvantage.  If I could do it over, I’d probably bump a few of the baddies up to CR 5.</blockquote>

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